BELFAST: India beat South Africa by six wickets in the rain-truncated 31-overs-a-side third and final one-day international cricket to clinch the series 2-1.
Gautam Gambhir (5) survived a mix-up with Ganguly before plotting his own peril by dragging a Dale Steyn delivery onto his stumps and crisis compounded when Ganguly, dropped by Jacques Kallis while batting on one, too departed, leaving India reeling at 38 for three inside nine overs.
India were in dire need of a solid partnership but both Yuvraj and Dravid hardly looked convincing. Yuvraj too was dropped in the slips off Kallis, while Dravid found the all-pace South African attack too hot to handle. But to their credit, both hung on, swapping glitz for grit.
Dravid hit his counterpart Kallis for three boundaries in the 23rd over to take India past the 100-mark before throwing away his wicket. Responding to Yuvraj's call for a quick single, Dravid was virtually strolling to the non-striker end only to see a Boucher throw disturb the stumps. It was a rare casual lapse on Dravid's part who did not even ground his bat.
Yuvraj, however, kept his cool and milked the South African attack. He waited for the right opportunity and ran hard between the wickets. The dashing left-hander never allowed the pressure get the better of him and came up with a match-winning knock that also earned him the Man of the Match award.
Earlier, put into bat in difficult conditions, South Africa ran into trouble straightway with comeback man Ajit Agarkar and Ganguly coming up with identical two-wicket bursts. Keen to make his mark in the series after missing the first two matches with flu, Agarkar trapped in-form Morne van Wyk for a duck with his fifth delivery and then sent down gem of a delivery that hit a bamboozled Jacques Kallis' off stump past his flailing blade.
Like van Wyk, the South African skipper too did not trouble the scorer. AB de Villiers (15) got two lives in the eventful fifth over by Zaheer Khan when umpire Aleem Dar failed to sight a thick edge and, in the next delivery, Gambhir grassed a catch at short leg. Ganguly, however, ensured that the opener did not make the most of the lives he got.
On a condition that suited his bowling, Ganguly was in fact on a hat-trick after removing de Villiers and Jean-Paul Duminy (0) with successive deliveries. De Villiers perished offering a bat-pad catch, while Duminy was rapped on the pad by a slightly faster delivery after an attempted flick.
Kemp foiled Ganguly's hat-trick bid even though he was not very convincing as he inside edged it to fine leg. South Africa found itself in a morass at 28 for four inside 13 overs. Their back against the wall, Kemp and Gibbs decided attack was the best defense and counter-attacked with Piyush Chawla and Yuvraj Singh bearing the brunt of the charge.
Zaheer eventually yorked Gibbs after a 67-ball knock of 56, which included three fours and two sixes.
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